


Better That Way

by aspermoth



Category: Atop the Fourth Wall
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Blood, Gen, Introspection, Murder, Songfic, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 00:42:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1206514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspermoth/pseuds/aspermoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a quiet little town with her mother and father. This is the story of how she died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better That Way

**Author's Note:**

> As implied by the tags, this is a fic inspired by a song: "Bleed Out" by Blue October. If you want to listen to the song while reading, [please click here.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn1-NkoVaDw)

You close your eyes. Sometimes it's better that way. When you can't see what's coming next, you can't tense up. It hurts less.

Except that when your eyes are close, it's all uncertain. A dreadful wait between blows. Waiting and waiting for the next strike to come and no idea when he'll hit you again and send you sprawling in the dirt.

But for now, you'll kneel here with your eyes shut and endure it.

You don't beg them to stop. You did at first, a long time ago now, but it did no good. They just laughed and chanted the same words again and again: "Feel the love of God! Feel your ascension into His Glory! May the love of God guide you!"

You feel rather than hear her sigh. A happy sigh, one of contentment. You tense despite yourself as the whip comes down on your back. You feel the skin split, but you've long since lost the energy to scream, even when the pain floods your mind and all you can see is red.

It's nothing compared with the desperate aching wonder in your chest, the hot burning core that keeps asking the same questions: why? Why would they do this to you? You loved them. Did they ever love you?

You know they didn't. If they did, they would have let you off your knees by now, and here you are.

You open your eyes and look up into your mother's face. Her eyes are bright and her lips stretched in a ghoulish smile, a smile that twists that face that one comforted you when you had bad dreams into something from a nightmare.

"Feel the love of God!" she cries.

This feels like a dream, but you know it's not. Everything before now was the dream: this is the truth of the world.

Your father cracks the whip again. It licks across your back like a tongue of fire. Your body gives way and you collapse onto the ground. He laughs, the way he'd laugh when he read to you before you went to sleep at night.

"Feel your ascension into His glory!"

You feel lightheaded, dizzy. Looking up, the houses of your street seem to be looming down over you, leaning in towards you like they're going to fall and crush you. You wish they would.

Some of your neighbours are peering around the edges of their curtains, but they won't do anything. They won't hear your plea. They're all in on it. They all knew. It was simple, a secret being told to everyone but you.

They all knew.

Something cold hits your face. A raindrop. Nothing unusual. You're used to cloudbursts like this in your quiet little town, unexpected rain that would catch you unawares on summer days and send you running for cover and home until it passed on and you could go back out to play.

Your mother hated it when you were outside in the rain for too long. She was worried that you'd catch cold. She always worried about your health so much.

It all comes back to you. To this.

Your father pulls you back up onto your knees, gives you a little shake to make sure you're conscious. Waking up, falling down, it makes no difference to you any more. It's just another day for them to bring you pain and suffering until you come undone in mind, body and soul.

Your body is destroyed. They took it away from you. But your mind and soul are yours to keep, and every day, you feel them burn brighter.

The whip strikes you a third time, then a fourth. A fifth. You collapse again and when your father tries to pull you back into an upright position, you can't sustain it. You haven't got the strength.

On the day this started, they came to you. It was your thirteenth birthday. They said that you had a great purpose, that there was something that you could do that would help Mommy and Daddy so very much, that Mommy and Daddy would be very hurt if you said no, dear, and you don't want to hurt us, do you?

Of course you didn't. You would do anything for them, to help them, to heal their pain. You loved them.

But in return, they cut you over and over and over.

You gave them everything you had. You gave it all, but they can't stop taking from you, and they won't stop. Not until they have everything of you. Not until they have what they want.

Your father strokes a hand across your cheek. The touch is almost tender.

"May the love of God guide you."

He stands up and kicks you in the mouth. You taste blood. Your mother gasps, not with horror but with excitement.

"Is it time?"

"It is indeed, my love."

It's the moment, the one they've been anticipating and you've been dreading and longing for in equal measure.

The moment that you die.

They drag you back to the house through the dirt. Through the front door. Up the stairs. Into the bathroom. The room is full of unlit candles, just as it always is. Your mother strikes a match and starts to light the wicks as your father lifts you up like a newborn and places you in the bathtub.

Your father leaves the room. Your mother turns out the lights. Shadows flicker on the walls, huge and strange. Your mother strokes your hair and for a moment, it feels like you're young again, like she could love you. But way down you know that she knows where to cut you with her eyes closed.

"Feel your ascension into God's glory," she whispers. "Feel His love."

Your father returns with an old, leather-bound book and a strange knife you've never seen before.

And it hits you like a tidal wave from a calm sea: this is all you were meant for. This is all they wanted from you. This is all you were ever supposed to do, all you were ever supposed to be.

And now you finally feel it. You finally feel like what you're supposed to be. An instrument of their will, a means to achieve their goals, and nothing more.

You thought you knew hate. You thought you hated the boy from down the street when he tripped you up and laughed when you skinned your knee. You thought you hated the snow when it froze the town white and kept you trapped inside for weeks on end. You thought you hated the girls who pulled your hair and called you names.

You knew nothing of hate before today.

Your father sits down on the edge of the bathtub, whispering words from the book in a tongue that you don't know. You hold out your arm. This is your moment and nobody's going to take it from you. You'll do what they say until the last, lose everything you are for their weapon, but you'll make sure they regret every second.

Your mother watches from the corner. She never meets your gaze.

Your father plunges the knife through your wrist.

More pain, but somehow dulled, far away, like it isn't connected to you any more. He draws the weapon back out of your flesh and you watch the blood began to pour. You watch yourself begin to bleed out.

Your father lays the book and the knife aside. Neither of them are looking at you. Their eyes are closed in reverie.

"Feel the love of God. Feel your ascension into His Glory. May the love of God guide you. Feel the love of God. Feel your ascension into His Glory. May the love of God guide you..."

You concentrate on your anger, your rage, your hate. You picture it seeping into your blood from every cell in your body and pouring out to stain the white porcelain red. Every unchecked drop of emotion.

"... Feel the love of God..."

If they want the liquid essence of your will, they'll have it. Have everything of you.

"... Feel your ascension into His Glory..."

Your vision is going dark around the edges. It won't be long until your heart stops beating, until your body becomes nothing but an empty shell of flesh and your soul is all that's left, twisted up in the wood and metal of this weapon, this gun.

"...May the love of God guide you..."

You don't want them to leave you. Let you bleed out here alone. But you've always been alone, haven't you?

They didn't love you.

You don't have the strength to cry any more.

You close your eyes. Sometimes it's better that way.


End file.
